And if any one transgresses these laws, the State
punishes him .
punishes him .
Aristotle and Ancient Educational Ideals by Thomas Davidson
He was now
free to go where he would, to frequent the agora and the street, to
attend the theatre, in which he had his appointed place, and to make
himself directly acquainted with all the details of public life. In the
gymnasium he passed into the hands of a gymnast or scientific trainer,
and for the next two or three years was subjected to the severer
exercises, wrestling, boxing, etc. No special provision, beyond the fact
that he had to learn the laws, was made for his intellectual and moral
instruction. He was expected to acquire this from contact with the older
citizens whom he met in the agora, the street, or the public park. Thus,
at what is justly regarded as the most critical age, he was almost
compelled to live a free, breezy, outdoor life, full of activity and
stirring incident, his thoughts and feelings directed outwards into acts
of will, and not turned back upon himself or his own states. At the same
time he was acquiring just that practical knowledge of ethical laws and
of real life which could best fit him for active citizenship. He now
learnt to ride, to drive, to row, to swim, to attend banquets, to
sustain a conversation, to discuss the weightiest questions of
statesmanship, to sing and dance in public choruses, and to ride or walk
in public processions. If he abused his liberty and behaved in a lawless
or unseemly way, he was called to account by the severe Court of the
Areopagus, which attended to public morals. He saw little of girls of
his own age, except his sisters, unless it was at public festivals, when
there was little opportunity of becoming acquainted with them. His
affectionate nature therefore expressed itself mostly in the form of
devoted friendships to other youths of his own, or nearly his own, age,
a fact which enables us to understand why friendship fills so large a
space, not only in the life, but also in the ethical treatises of the
Greeks,--Plato, Aristotle, etc. ,--and why love, in the modern sense,
plays so insignificant a part. The truth is that, even in Athens, the
State encroached upon the family. Plato's _Republic_ was only the
logical carrying out of principles that were latent long before in the
social life of the Athenian people.
It would be impossible to treat in detail the exercises to which the
Athenian youth was subjected during the years in which he attended the
public gymnasium as a pupil. The old exercises of the palaestra were
continued, running and wrestling especially; but the former was now done
in armor, and the latter became more violent, and was supplemented by
boxing. In fact, the physical exercises were now systematized into the
_pentathlon_--running, leaping, discus-throwing, wrestling,
boxing--which formed the programme of nearly all gymnastic exhibitions.
During these years, the youth was still regarded as a minor, and his
father or guardian was responsible for his good behavior. But when he
reached the age of eighteen, a change took place, and he passed under
the direct control of the State. His father now brought him before the
reeve of his _demos_ (ward or village), as a candidate for independent
citizenship. If he proved to be the lawful child of free citizens, and
came up to the moral and physical requirements of the law, his name was
entered upon the register of the demos, and he became a member of it. He
was now prepared to be presented to the whole people, and to pass the
State examination. He shore his long hair for the first time, and donned
the black garment of the citizen. In this guise he presented himself to
the king-archon of the State, who, at a public assembly, introduced him,
along with others, to the whole people. He was then and there armed with
spear and shield (supplied by the State if his father had fallen in
war), and thence proceeded to the shrine of Aglauros, where, looking
down on the agora, the city, and the Attic plain, he took the Solonian
oath of citizenship (see p. 61). He was now technically an _eph? bos_,
cadet, or citizen-novice, ready to undergo those two years of severe
discipline which at once formed his introduction to practical affairs,
and constituted the State examination. During the first year he remained
in the neighborhood of Athens, drilling in arms, and acquiring a
knowledge of military tactics. His life was now the hard life of a
soldier. He slept in the open air, or in the guard-houses (? ? ? ? ? ? ? )
that surrounded the city, and was liable to be called upon at any time
by the government to give aid in an emergency. He also took part in the
public festivals. At the end of the year, all the _eph? boi_ of one
year's standing passed an examination in military drill before the
assembled people (? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? [3]), after which
they were employed as militia to man the frontier guard-houses, and as
rural _gendarmerie_ (? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ), scouring the country in all directions.
They now lived like soldiers in war-time, and learnt two important
things, (1) the topography of Attica, its roads, passes, brooks,
springs, etc. , (2) the art of enforcing law and order. Their life,
indeed, closely resembled that of the Alpine corps (_Alpini_) of the
Italian army at the present day. These spend the summer in making
themselves acquainted with every height, valley, pass, stream, and
covert in the Italian Alps, often bivouacking for days together at great
heights. That during this time the _eph? boi_ should have taken any part
in the legislative or judicial duties of citizens, seems in the highest
degree improbable. At the end of their second year, however, they passed
a second examination, called the citizenship or manhood examination
(? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ), after which they were full members of the State.
(4) UNIVERSITY EDUCATION.
The Greek university was the State, and the Greek State was a
university--a _Cultur-Staat_, as the Germans say. That the State is a
school of virtue, was a view generally entertained in the ancient world,
which, until it began to decay, completely identified the man with the
citizen. The influence of this view upon the attitude of the individual
to the State, and of the State to the individual, can hardly be
overestimated. The State claimed, and the individual accorded to it, a
disciplinary right which extended to every sphere and action of life.
Thus the sphere of morality coincided exactly with the sphere of
legality, or, to put it the other way, the sphere of legality extended
to the whole sphere of morality, and this was considered true, whatever
form the State or government might assume--monarchy, aristocracy,
democracy, etc.
To give a full account of the university education of old Athens would
be to write her social and political history up to the time of the
Persian Wars. This is, of course, out of the question. All I can do is
to point out those elements in the State which enabled it to produce
that splendid array of noble men, and accomplish those great deeds and
works, which make her brief career seem the brightest spot in the
world's history.
The chief of these elements, and the one which included all the rest,
was the Greek ideal of harmony. Athens was great as a State and as a
school so long as she embodied that ideal, so long as she distributed
power and honor in accordance with worth (? ? ? ? ? ) intellectual, moral,
practical; in a word, so long as the State was governed by the best
citizens (? ? ? ? ? ? ? ), and the rest acknowledged their right to do so.
Notwithstanding the contention of Grote and others, it is strictly true
that Athens was great because, and so long as, she was aristocratic (in
the ancient sense), and perished when she abandoned her fundamental
ideal by becoming democratic. This assertion must not be construed as
any slur upon democracy as such, or as denying that Athens in perishing
paved the way for a higher ideal than her own. It simply states a fact,
which may be easily generalized without losing its truth: An institution
perishes when it abandons the principle on which it was founded and
built up. Unless we bear this in mind, we shall utterly fail to
understand the lesson of Athenian history. If it be maintained that some
of Athens' noblest work was done under the democracy, the sufficient
answer is, that it was nearly all done by men who retained the spirit of
the old aristocracy, and bitterly opposed the democracy. We need name
only AEschylus, Sophocles, Aristophanes, Plato, Aristotle, Demosthenes.
PART II
THE "NEW EDUCATION" (B. C. 480-338)
CHAPTER I
INDIVIDUALISM AND PHILOSOPHY
Homer ought to be driven from the lists and whipt, and Archilochus
likewise. --Heraclitus.
Thou needs must have knowledge of all things,
First of the steadfast core of the Truth that forceth conviction,
Then of the notions of mortals, where true conviction abides not.
--Parmenides.
All things were undistinguished: then Intellect came and brought
them into order. --Anaxagoras.
Man is the measure of all things.
In regard to the Gods, I am unable to know whether they are or are
not. --Protagoras.
STREPSIADES. Don't you see what a good thing it is to have learning?
There isn't any Zeus, Phidippides!
PHIDIPPIDES. Who is there then?
STREPS. Vortex rules, having dethroned Zeus.
PHID. Pshaw! what nonsense!
STREPS. You may count it true, all the same.
PHID. Who says so?
STREPS. Socrates the Melian, and Chaerephon, who knows the footprints
of fleas. --Aristophanes, _Clouds_.
There is an old-fashioned saw, current of yore among mortals, that a
man's happiness, when full-grown, gives birth and dies not
childless, and that from Fortune there springs insatiate woe for all
his race. But I, dissenting from all others, am alone of different
mind. It is the Irreverent Deed that begets after it more of its
kind. For to righteous homes belongs a fair-childrened lot forever;
but old Irreverence is sure to beget Irreverence, springing up fresh
among evil men, when the numbered hour arrives. And the new
Irreverence begets Surfeit of Wealth, and a power beyond all battle,
beyond all war, unholy Daring, twin curses, black to homes, like to
their parents. But Justice shines in smoky homes, and honors the
righteous life, and, leaving, with averted eyes, foundations gilded
with impurity of hands, she draws nigh to holy things, honoring not
the power of wealth, with its counterfeit stamp of praise. And her
will is done. --AEschylus
From the time they are children to the day of their death, we teach
them and admonish them. As soon as the child understands what is
said to him, his nurse and his mother and his pedagogue and even his
father vie with each other in trying to make the best of him that
can be made, at every word and deed instructing him and warning him,
"This is right," "This is wrong," "This is beautiful," "This is
ugly," "This is righteous," "This is sinful," "Do this," "Don't do
that. " And if the child readily obeys, well and good; if he does
not, then they treat him like a bent and twisted stick,
straightening him out with threats and blows. Later on, they send
him to school, and then they lay their injunctions upon the masters
to pay much more attention to the good behavior of their sons than
to their letters and music (? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ); and the teachers act upon
these injunctions. Later yet, when they have learnt to read, and are
proceeding to understand the meaning of what is written, just as
formerly they understood what was said to them, they put before them
on the benches to read the works of good poets, and insist upon
their learning them by heart--works which contain many admonitions,
and many narratives, noble deeds, and eulogies of the worthy men of
old--their purpose being to awaken the boy's ambition, so that he
may imitate these men and strive to be worthy likewise. The
music-teachers also, pursuing the same line, try to inculcate
self-control (? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ) and to prevent the boys from falling into
mischief. In addition to this, when they have learnt to play on the
lyre, their masters teach them other poems, written by great lyric
poets, making them sing them and play the accompaniments to them,
and compelling them to work into their souls the rhythms and
melodies of them, so that they may grow in gentleness, and, having
their natures timed and tuned, may be fitted to speak and act. The
truth is, the whole life of man needs timing and tuning.
Furthermore, in addition to all this, parents send their sons to the
physical trainer, in order that their bodies may be improved and
rendered capable of seconding a noble intent, and they themselves
not be forced, from physical deterioration, to play the coward in
war or other (serious) matters. And those who can best afford to
give this education, give most of it, and these are the richest
people. Their sons go earliest to school and leave it latest. And
when the boys leave school, the State insists that they shall learn
the laws and live according to them, and not according to their own
caprice . . .
And if any one transgresses these laws, the State
punishes him . . . Seeing that so much attention is devoted to virtue,
both in the family and in the State, do you wonder, Socrates, and
question whether virtue be something that can be taught? Surely you
ought not to wonder at this, but rather to wonder if it could _not_
be taught. --Plato, _Protagoras_ (_words of Protagoras_).
"Isn't it true, Lysis," said I, "that your parents love you very
much? "--"To be sure," said he. --"Then they would wish you to be as
happy as possible? "--"Of course," said he. --"And do you think a
person is happy who is a slave, and is not allowed to do anything he
desires? "--"I don't, indeed," said he. --"Then, if your father and
mother love you and wish you to be happy, they endeavor by every
means in their power to make you happy. "--"To be sure they do," said
he. --"Then they allow you to do anything you please, and never chide
you, or prevent you from doing what you desire. "--"By Jove! they do,
Socrates: they prevent me from doing a great many things. "--"What do
you mean," said I; "they wish you to be happy, and yet prevent you
from doing what you wish? Let us take an example: If you want to
ride in one of your father's chariots, and to hold the reins, when
it is competing in a race, won't they allow you, or will they
prevent you? "--"By Jove! no: they would not allow me," said he. "But
why should they? There is a charioteer, who is hired by my
father. "--"What do you mean? They allow a hired man, rather than
you, to do what he likes with the horses, and pay him a salary
besides? "--"And why not? " said he. --"Well then, I suppose they allow
you to manage the mule-team, and if you wanted to take the whip and
whip it, they would permit you. "--"How could they? " said
he. --"What? " said I: "is nobody allowed to whip it? "--"Of course,"
he said; "the muleteer. "--"A slave or a free man? "--"A slave," said
he. --"And so it seems they think more of a slave than of their son,
and entrust their property to him rather than to you, and allow him
to do what he pleases, whereas they prevent you. But, farther, tell
me this. Do they allow you to manage yourself, or do they not even
trust you to that extent? "--"How trust me? " said he. --"Then does
some one manage you? "--"Yes, my pedagogue here," said he. --"But he
is surely not a slave? "--"Of course he is, our slave," said he. --"Is
it not strange," said I, "that a freeman should be governed by a
slave? But, to continue, what is this pedagogue doing when he
governs you? "--"Taking me to a teacher, or something of the kind,"
he said. --"And these teachers, it cannot be that they too govern
you? "--"To any extent. "--"So then your father likes to set over you
a host of masters and managers; but, of course, when you go home to
your mother, she lets you do what you like, in order to make you
happy, either with the threads or the loom, when she is
weaving--does she not? She surely doesn't in the least prevent you
from handling the batten, or the comb, or any of the instruments
used in spinning. "--And he, laughing, said: "By Jove, Socrates; she
not only prevents me, but I should be beaten if I touched
them. "--"By Hercules," said I, "isn't it true that you have done
some wrong to your father and mother? "--"By Jove, not I," he
said. --"But for what reason, then, do they so anxiously prevent you
from being happy, and doing what you please, and maintain you the
whole day in servitude to some one or another, and without power to
do almost anything you like. It seems, indeed, that you derive no
advantage from all this wealth, but anybody manages it rather than
you, nor from your body, nobly born as it is, but some one else
shepherds it and takes care of it. But you govern nothing, Lysis,
and do nothing that you desire. "--"The reason, Socrates," he said,
"is, that I am not of age. "--Plato, _Lysis_.
The present state of the constitution is as follows: Citizenship is
a right of children whose parents are both of them citizens.
Registration as member of a deme or township takes place when
eighteen years of age are completed. Before it takes place the
townsmen of the deme find a verdict on oath, firstly, whether they
believe the youth to be as old as the law requires, and if the
verdict is in the negative he returns to the ranks of the boys.
Secondly, the jury find whether he is freeborn and legitimate. If
the verdict is against him he appeals to the Heliaea, and the
municipality delegate five of their body to accuse him of
illegitimacy. If he is found by the jurors to have been illegally
proposed for the register, the State sells him for a slave; if the
judgment is given in his favor, he must be registered as one of the
municipality. Those on the register are afterwards examined by the
senate, and if anyone is found not to be eighteen years old, a fine
is imposed on the municipality by which he was registered. After
approbation, they are called _epheboi_, or cadets, and the parents
of all who belong to a single tribe hold a meeting and, after being
sworn, choose three men of the tribe above forty years of age, whom
they believe to be of stainless character and fittest for the
superintendence of youth, and out of these the commons in ecclesia
select one superintendent for all of each tribe, and a governor of
the whole body of youths from the general body of the Athenians.
These take them in charge, and after visiting with them all the
temples, march down to Piraeus, where they garrison the north and
south harbors, Munychia and Acte. The commons also elect two
gymnastic trainers for them, and persons who teach them to fight in
heavy armor, to draw the bow, to throw the javelin, and to handle
artillery. Each of the ten commanders receives as pay a drachma
[about 20 cts. ] per diem, and each of the cadets four obols [about
13 cts. ]. Each commander draws the pay of the cadets of his own
tribe, buys with it the necessaries of life for the whole band (for
they mess together by tribes), and purveys for all their wants. The
first year is spent in military exercises. The second year the
commons meet in the theatre and the cadets, after displaying before
them their mastery in warlike evolutions, are each presented with a
shield and spear, and become mounted patrols of the frontier and
garrison the fortresses. They perform this service for two years,
wearing the equestrian cloak and enjoying immunity from civic
functions. During this period, to guard their military duties from
interruption, they can be parties to no action either as defendant
or plaintiff, except in suits respecting inheritance, or heiresses,
or successions to hereditary priesthoods. When the three years are
completed they fall into the ordinary body of citizens. --Aristotle,
_Constitution of Athens_ (_Poste's Version, with slight
alterations_).
That perfect harmony between power and worth at which the Athenian State
aimed, was something not easily attained or preserved. As far back as
its recorded history reaches, we find a struggle for power going on
between a party which possessed more power than its worth justified, and
a party which possessed less; that is, between a party which, having
once been worthy, strove to hold power in virtue of its past history,
and one that claimed power in virtue of the worth into which it was
growing: in a word, a struggle between declining aristocracy and growing
democracy. To the party in power, of course, this seemed a rebellion
against lawful authority and privilege, and it did its best to suppress
it. Hence came the rigorous legislation of Draco; later the more
conciliatory, less out-spoken, but equally aristocratic legislation of
Solon; then the tyranny of Pisistratus, lasting as long as he could hold
the balance of power between the contending parties; then the
constitution of Clisthenes, with the breaking up of the old Athenian
aristocratic system, the remodelling of the tribes, the degradation of
the Areopagus, and the definite triumph of democracy. To complete the
movement and, as it were, to consecrate it, came the Persian Wars, which
mark the turning-point, the _peripeteia_, in Athenian history and
education. Whatever efforts aristocracy makes to maintain itself after
this, are made in the name of, and under cover of a zeal for, democracy.
The aristocratic Athenian State was based upon land-ownership, slavery,
and the entire freedom of the land-owning class from all but family and
State duties, from all need of engaging in productive industry. So long
as the chief wealth of the State consisted in land and its produce, so
long the population was divided into two classes, the rich and the poor,
and so long the former had little difficulty in keeping all power in
its own hands. But no sooner did the growth of commerce throw wealth
into the hands of a class that owned no land, and was not above engaging
in industry, than this class began to claim a share in political power.
There were now two wealthy classes, standing opposed to each other, a
proud, conservative one, with "old wealth and worth," and a vain,
radical one, with new wealth and wants, both bidding for the favor of
the class that had little wealth, little worth, and many wants, and thus
making it feel its importance. Such is the origin of Athenian democracy.
It is the child of trade and productive industry. It owed its final
consecration to the Persian Wars, and especially to the battle of
Salamis, in which Athens was saved by her fleet, manned chiefly by
marines (? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ) from the lower classes, the upper classes, as we have
seen, being trained only for land-service. Thus the battle of Salamis
was not only a victory of Greece over Persia, but of foreign trade over
home agriculture, of democracy over aristocracy.
The fact that the Athenian democracy owed its origin to trade
determined, in great measure, its history and tendencies. One of its
many results was that it opened Athens to the influx of foreign men,
foreign ideas, and foreign habits, not to speak of foreign gods, all of
which tended to break up the old self-contained, carefully organized
life of the people. In no department were their effects sooner or more
clearly felt than in that of education. From about the date of the
battle of Salamis, when the youthful Ionian, Anaxagoras, came to Athens,
a succession of men of "advanced" ideas in art and science sought a
field of action within her borders. Such a field, indeed, seemed
purposely to have been left open for them by the State, which had
provided no means of intellectual or moral education for its young
citizens, after they passed under its care (see p. 87). Nothing was
easier or more profitable than for these wise foreigners to constitute
themselves public teachers, and fill the place which the State had left
vacant. The State might occasionally object, and seek to punish one or
another of them for corrupting of the youth by the promulgation of
impious or otherwise dangerous ideas, as it did in the case of
Anaxagoras; but their activity was too much in harmony with a tendency
of the time,--a radical and individualistic tendency inseparable from
democracy,--to be dispensed with altogether. Hence it was that, within a
few years after the battle of Salamis, there flourished in Athens a
class of men unknown before within her boundaries, a class of private
professors, or "sophists," as they called themselves, who undertook to
teach theoretically what the State had assumed could be taught only
practically and by herself, viz. , virtue and wisdom. Their ideas were
novel, striking, and radical, hence congenial to a newly emancipated
populace, vain of its recent achievements, and contemptuous of all that
savored of the narrow, pious puritanism of the old time; their premises
were magnificent, and their fees high enough to impose upon a class that
always measures the value of a thing by what it is asked to pay for it;
their method of teaching was such as to flatter the vanity, and secure
the favor, of both pupils and parents. No wonder that their success was
immediate and their influence enormous.
From the days of Socrates to our own, 'sophist' has been a term of
reproach, and not altogether unjustly so. Hegel, Grote, and Zeller have,
indeed, shown that the sophists did not deserve all the obloquy which
has attached itself to their name, inasmuch as they were neither much
better nor much worse than any class of men who set up to teach new
doctrines for money, and, as wise economists, suit supply to demand;
nevertheless, it may be fairly enough said that they largely contributed
to demoralize Athens, by encouraging irreverence for the very
conceptions upon which her polity was built, and by pandering to some of
the most selfish and individualistic tendencies of democracy. If it be
said that they have their place in the history of human evolution, as
the heralds of that higher view of life which allows the individual a
sphere of activities and interests outside of that occupied by the
State, this may at once and without difficulty be admitted, without our
being thereby forced to regard them as noble men. The truth is, they
represented, in practice and in theory, the spirit of individualism,
which was then everywhere asserting itself against the spirit of
nationalism or polity, and which perhaps had to assert itself in an
exaggerated and destructive way, before the rightful claims of the two
could be manifested and harmonized. It is the incorporation of this
spirit of individualism into education that constitutes the "New
Education. "
This spirit, as manifested in the sophists and their teaching, directed
itself against the old political spirit in all the departments of
life--in religion, in politics, in education. It discredited the old
popular gods, upon loyalty to whom the existence of the State had been
supposed to depend, substituting for them some crude fancy like Vortex,
or some bald abstraction like Intellect. It encouraged the individual to
seek his end in his own pleasure, and to regard the State as but a means
to that end. It championed an education in which these ideas occupied a
prominent place. What the sophists actually taught the ambitious young
men who sought their instruction, was self-assertion, unscrupulousness,
and a showy rhetoric, in whose triumphal procession facts, fancies, and
falsehoods marched together in brilliant array. It is but fair to them
to say that, in their endeavor to instruct young men in the art of
specious oratory, they laid the foundations of the art of rhetoric and
the science of grammar. So much, at least, the world owes to them.
Since it was to the young men, who, freed from the discipline of home,
pedagogue, school, and palaestra, could be met with anywhere, in the
street, the agora, the gymnasium, that the sophists directed their chief
attention, it was of course these who first showed the effects of their
teaching. But their influence, falling in, as it did, with the
pronounced radical tendencies of the time, soon made itself felt in all
grades of education, from the family to the university, in the form of
an irreverent, flippant, conceited rationalism, before whose
self-erected and self-corrupted tribunal every institution in heaven and
earth was to be tried. In the schools this influence showed itself in
various ways: (1) in an increased attention to literature, and
especially to the formal side of it, (2) in the tendency to substitute
for the works of the old epic and lyric poets the works of more recent
writers tinged with the new spirit, (3) in the introduction of new and
complicated instruments and kinds of music, (4) in an increasing
departure from the severe physical and moral discipline of the old days.
We now, for the first time, hear of a teacher of literature, distinct
from the music master, of teachers who possessed no copy of Homer
(Alcibiades is said to have chastised such a one), of flutes, citharas,
and the like in use in schools, of wildness and lewdness among boys of
tender age. In the palaestra the new spirit showed itself in a tendency
to substitute showy and unsystematic exercises for the vigorous and
graded exercises of the older time, to sacrifice education to execution.
But, as already remarked, the new spirit showed itself most clearly and
hurtfully in the higher education. The young men, instead of spending
their time in vigorous physical exercise in the gymnasia and open
country, began now to hang about the streets and public places,
listening to sophistic discussions, and to attend the schools of the
sophists, exercising their tongues more than any other part of their
bodies. The effect of this soon showed itself in a decline of physical
power, of endurance, courage, and manliness, and in a strong tendency to
luxury and other physical sins. They now began to imagine for themselves
a private life, very far from coincident with that demanded of a
citizen, and to look upon the old citizen-life, and its ideals,
sanctions, and duties, with contempt or pity, as something which they
had learnt to rise above. The glory and well-being of their country
were no longer their chief object of ambition. The dry rot of
individualism, which always seems to those affected by it an evidence of
health and manly vigor, was corrupting their moral nature, and preparing
the way for the destruction of the State. For it was but too natural
that these young men, when they came to be members of the State, should
neglect its lessons and claims, and, following the new teachings, live
to themselves. Thus, just as the character of the "Old Education" of
Athens showed itself in the behavior of her sons in the Persian Wars, so
that of her "New Education" showed itself fifty years later in the
Peloponnesian War, that long and disastrous struggle which wrecked
Athens and Greece.
Yet Athens and her education were not allowed to go to ruin without a
struggle. The aristocratic party long stuck to the old principles and
tried to give them effect; but, failing to understand the new
circumstances and to take account of them, it erred in the application
of them, by seeking simply to restore the old conditions. Individuals
also exerted their best efforts for the same end. AEschylus, who had
fought at Marathon, and who, more than any other Greek, was endowed with
the spirit of religion, interpreted the old mythology in an ethical
sense, and in this form worked it into a series of dramas, whereby the
history and institutions of the Greek people were shown to be due to a
guiding Providence of inexorable justice, rewarding each man according
to his works, abhorring proud homes "gilded with impurity of hands," and
dwelling with the pure and righteous, though housed in the meanest cot.
AEschylus thus became, not only the father of Greek tragedy, but also the
sublimest moral teacher Greece ever possessed. For moral grandeur there
is but one work in all literature that can stand by the side of
AEschylus' _Oresteia_, and that is the _Divine Comedy_. Yet AEschylus was
driven from Athens on a charge of impiety, and died in exile.
But it was not the tragic drama alone that was inspired and made a
preacher of righteousness: in the hands of Aristophanes, the comic drama
exerted all its power for the same end. For over thirty years this
inimitable humorist used the public theatre to lash the follies, and
hold up to contempt the wretched leaders, of the Athenian populace,
pointing out to his countrymen the abyss of destruction that was yawning
before them. The world has never seen such earnest comedy, not even in
the works of Moliere or Beaumarchais. Yet it was all in vain. Long
before his death, Aristophanes was forbidden to hold up to public scorn
the degradation of his people.
Among the individual citizens who labored with all their might to bring
back Athens to her old worth were two of very different character,
endowments, and position, the one laboring in the world of action, the
other in the world of thought. The first was Pericles, who, seeing that
democracy was the order of the day, accepted it, and, by his personal
character and position, strove to guide it to worthy ends. In order to
encourage gymnastic exercises, particularly among the sons of the newer
families, he built the Lyceum, in a grove sacred to Apollo, between
Cynosarges and the city walls, as a gymnasium for them. With a view to
encouraging among them the study of music, he built an odeon, or
music-hall, under the southeast end of the Acropolis. Both were
magnificent structures. What he did towards the completion of the great
theatre for the encouragement of dancing, we do not know; that this
entered into his plan, there can hardly be any doubt. But Pericles was
too wise a man to suppose that he could induce his pleasure-seeking
countrymen to subject themselves to the old discipline, without offering
them an object calculated to rouse their ambition and call forth their
energy. This object was nothing less than a united Greece, with Athens
as its capital. How hard he tried to make this object familiar to them,
and to render Athens worthy of the place he desired her to occupy, is
pathetically attested to this day by the Propylaea and the Parthenon. On
the frieze of the latter is represented the solemn sacrifice that was to
cement the union of the Hellenic people, and place it at the head of
civilization. When degenerate Greece resisted all his efforts to make
her become one peaceably, he tried to make her do so by force, and the
Peloponnesian War, started on a mere frivolous pretext, was the result.
He did not live long enough to learn the outcome of this desperate
attempt to wake his countrymen to new moral and political life, and it
was well. If he had, he might have been forced to recognize that he had
been attempting an impossible task,--trying to erect a strong structure
with rotten timber, to make a noble State out of ignoble, selfish men.
Unfortunately, the example of his own private life, in which he openly
defied one of the laws of the State, and tried to make concubinage
(? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ) respectable, more than undid all the good he sought to
accomplish. The truth is, Pericles was himself too deeply imbued with
the three vices of his time--rationalism, self-indulgence, and love of
show--to be able to see any true remedy for the evils that sprang from
them. What was needed was not letters, music, gymnastics, dancing, or
dream of empire, but something entirely different--a new moral
inspiration and ideal.
This, the second of the men to whom reference has been made, Socrates,
sought to supply. In the midst of self-indulgence, he lived a life of
poverty and privation; in the midst of splendor and the worship of
outward beauty, he pursued simplicity and took pleasure in his ugliness;
in the midst of self-assertive rationalism and all-knowing sophistry, he
professed ignorance and submission to the gods. The problem of how to
restore the moral life of Athens and Greece presented itself to Socrates
in this form: _The old ethical social sanctions, divine and human,
having, under the influence of rationalism and individualism, lost their
power, where and how shall we find other sanctions to take their place? _
To answer this one question was the aim of Socrates' whole life. He was
not long in seeing that any true answer must rest upon a comprehension
of man's entire nature and relations, and that the sophists were able to
impose upon his countrymen only because no such comprehension was
theirs. He saw that the old moral life, based upon naive tradition and
prescription, sanctioned by gods of the imagination, would have to give
place to a moral life resting upon self-understanding and reflection.
He accordingly adopted as his motto the command of the Delphic oracle,
_Know Thyself_ (? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? o? ), and set to work with all his might to
obey it.
He now, therefore, went to meet the sophists on their own ground and
with their own methods, and he did this so well as to be considered by
many, Aristophanes among them, as the best possible representative of
the class. What is true is, that he was the first Athenian who undertook
to do what the sophists had for some time considered their special
function,--to impart a "higher education" to the youth and men of
Athens. He went about the streets, shops, walks, schools, and gymnasia
of the city, drawing all sorts of persons into conversation, and trying
to elicit truth for himself and them (for he pretended to know nothing).
He was never so pleased as when he met a real sophist, who professed to
have knowledge, and never so much in his element as when, in the
presence of a knot of young men, he could, by his ironical, subtle
questions, force said sophist to admit that he too knew nothing. The
fact was, Socrates, studying Heraclitus, had become convinced that the
reason why men fell into error was because they did not know themselves,
or their own thoughts, because what they called thoughts were mere
opinions, mere fragments of thoughts. He concluded that, if men were
ever to be redeemed from error, intellectual and moral, they must be
made to think whole thoughts. Accordingly, he took the ordinary opinions
of men and, by a series of well-directed questions, tried to bring out
their implications, that is, the wholes of which they were parts. Such
is the Socratic or dialectic (= conversational) method.
free to go where he would, to frequent the agora and the street, to
attend the theatre, in which he had his appointed place, and to make
himself directly acquainted with all the details of public life. In the
gymnasium he passed into the hands of a gymnast or scientific trainer,
and for the next two or three years was subjected to the severer
exercises, wrestling, boxing, etc. No special provision, beyond the fact
that he had to learn the laws, was made for his intellectual and moral
instruction. He was expected to acquire this from contact with the older
citizens whom he met in the agora, the street, or the public park. Thus,
at what is justly regarded as the most critical age, he was almost
compelled to live a free, breezy, outdoor life, full of activity and
stirring incident, his thoughts and feelings directed outwards into acts
of will, and not turned back upon himself or his own states. At the same
time he was acquiring just that practical knowledge of ethical laws and
of real life which could best fit him for active citizenship. He now
learnt to ride, to drive, to row, to swim, to attend banquets, to
sustain a conversation, to discuss the weightiest questions of
statesmanship, to sing and dance in public choruses, and to ride or walk
in public processions. If he abused his liberty and behaved in a lawless
or unseemly way, he was called to account by the severe Court of the
Areopagus, which attended to public morals. He saw little of girls of
his own age, except his sisters, unless it was at public festivals, when
there was little opportunity of becoming acquainted with them. His
affectionate nature therefore expressed itself mostly in the form of
devoted friendships to other youths of his own, or nearly his own, age,
a fact which enables us to understand why friendship fills so large a
space, not only in the life, but also in the ethical treatises of the
Greeks,--Plato, Aristotle, etc. ,--and why love, in the modern sense,
plays so insignificant a part. The truth is that, even in Athens, the
State encroached upon the family. Plato's _Republic_ was only the
logical carrying out of principles that were latent long before in the
social life of the Athenian people.
It would be impossible to treat in detail the exercises to which the
Athenian youth was subjected during the years in which he attended the
public gymnasium as a pupil. The old exercises of the palaestra were
continued, running and wrestling especially; but the former was now done
in armor, and the latter became more violent, and was supplemented by
boxing. In fact, the physical exercises were now systematized into the
_pentathlon_--running, leaping, discus-throwing, wrestling,
boxing--which formed the programme of nearly all gymnastic exhibitions.
During these years, the youth was still regarded as a minor, and his
father or guardian was responsible for his good behavior. But when he
reached the age of eighteen, a change took place, and he passed under
the direct control of the State. His father now brought him before the
reeve of his _demos_ (ward or village), as a candidate for independent
citizenship. If he proved to be the lawful child of free citizens, and
came up to the moral and physical requirements of the law, his name was
entered upon the register of the demos, and he became a member of it. He
was now prepared to be presented to the whole people, and to pass the
State examination. He shore his long hair for the first time, and donned
the black garment of the citizen. In this guise he presented himself to
the king-archon of the State, who, at a public assembly, introduced him,
along with others, to the whole people. He was then and there armed with
spear and shield (supplied by the State if his father had fallen in
war), and thence proceeded to the shrine of Aglauros, where, looking
down on the agora, the city, and the Attic plain, he took the Solonian
oath of citizenship (see p. 61). He was now technically an _eph? bos_,
cadet, or citizen-novice, ready to undergo those two years of severe
discipline which at once formed his introduction to practical affairs,
and constituted the State examination. During the first year he remained
in the neighborhood of Athens, drilling in arms, and acquiring a
knowledge of military tactics. His life was now the hard life of a
soldier. He slept in the open air, or in the guard-houses (? ? ? ? ? ? ? )
that surrounded the city, and was liable to be called upon at any time
by the government to give aid in an emergency. He also took part in the
public festivals. At the end of the year, all the _eph? boi_ of one
year's standing passed an examination in military drill before the
assembled people (? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? [3]), after which
they were employed as militia to man the frontier guard-houses, and as
rural _gendarmerie_ (? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ), scouring the country in all directions.
They now lived like soldiers in war-time, and learnt two important
things, (1) the topography of Attica, its roads, passes, brooks,
springs, etc. , (2) the art of enforcing law and order. Their life,
indeed, closely resembled that of the Alpine corps (_Alpini_) of the
Italian army at the present day. These spend the summer in making
themselves acquainted with every height, valley, pass, stream, and
covert in the Italian Alps, often bivouacking for days together at great
heights. That during this time the _eph? boi_ should have taken any part
in the legislative or judicial duties of citizens, seems in the highest
degree improbable. At the end of their second year, however, they passed
a second examination, called the citizenship or manhood examination
(? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ), after which they were full members of the State.
(4) UNIVERSITY EDUCATION.
The Greek university was the State, and the Greek State was a
university--a _Cultur-Staat_, as the Germans say. That the State is a
school of virtue, was a view generally entertained in the ancient world,
which, until it began to decay, completely identified the man with the
citizen. The influence of this view upon the attitude of the individual
to the State, and of the State to the individual, can hardly be
overestimated. The State claimed, and the individual accorded to it, a
disciplinary right which extended to every sphere and action of life.
Thus the sphere of morality coincided exactly with the sphere of
legality, or, to put it the other way, the sphere of legality extended
to the whole sphere of morality, and this was considered true, whatever
form the State or government might assume--monarchy, aristocracy,
democracy, etc.
To give a full account of the university education of old Athens would
be to write her social and political history up to the time of the
Persian Wars. This is, of course, out of the question. All I can do is
to point out those elements in the State which enabled it to produce
that splendid array of noble men, and accomplish those great deeds and
works, which make her brief career seem the brightest spot in the
world's history.
The chief of these elements, and the one which included all the rest,
was the Greek ideal of harmony. Athens was great as a State and as a
school so long as she embodied that ideal, so long as she distributed
power and honor in accordance with worth (? ? ? ? ? ) intellectual, moral,
practical; in a word, so long as the State was governed by the best
citizens (? ? ? ? ? ? ? ), and the rest acknowledged their right to do so.
Notwithstanding the contention of Grote and others, it is strictly true
that Athens was great because, and so long as, she was aristocratic (in
the ancient sense), and perished when she abandoned her fundamental
ideal by becoming democratic. This assertion must not be construed as
any slur upon democracy as such, or as denying that Athens in perishing
paved the way for a higher ideal than her own. It simply states a fact,
which may be easily generalized without losing its truth: An institution
perishes when it abandons the principle on which it was founded and
built up. Unless we bear this in mind, we shall utterly fail to
understand the lesson of Athenian history. If it be maintained that some
of Athens' noblest work was done under the democracy, the sufficient
answer is, that it was nearly all done by men who retained the spirit of
the old aristocracy, and bitterly opposed the democracy. We need name
only AEschylus, Sophocles, Aristophanes, Plato, Aristotle, Demosthenes.
PART II
THE "NEW EDUCATION" (B. C. 480-338)
CHAPTER I
INDIVIDUALISM AND PHILOSOPHY
Homer ought to be driven from the lists and whipt, and Archilochus
likewise. --Heraclitus.
Thou needs must have knowledge of all things,
First of the steadfast core of the Truth that forceth conviction,
Then of the notions of mortals, where true conviction abides not.
--Parmenides.
All things were undistinguished: then Intellect came and brought
them into order. --Anaxagoras.
Man is the measure of all things.
In regard to the Gods, I am unable to know whether they are or are
not. --Protagoras.
STREPSIADES. Don't you see what a good thing it is to have learning?
There isn't any Zeus, Phidippides!
PHIDIPPIDES. Who is there then?
STREPS. Vortex rules, having dethroned Zeus.
PHID. Pshaw! what nonsense!
STREPS. You may count it true, all the same.
PHID. Who says so?
STREPS. Socrates the Melian, and Chaerephon, who knows the footprints
of fleas. --Aristophanes, _Clouds_.
There is an old-fashioned saw, current of yore among mortals, that a
man's happiness, when full-grown, gives birth and dies not
childless, and that from Fortune there springs insatiate woe for all
his race. But I, dissenting from all others, am alone of different
mind. It is the Irreverent Deed that begets after it more of its
kind. For to righteous homes belongs a fair-childrened lot forever;
but old Irreverence is sure to beget Irreverence, springing up fresh
among evil men, when the numbered hour arrives. And the new
Irreverence begets Surfeit of Wealth, and a power beyond all battle,
beyond all war, unholy Daring, twin curses, black to homes, like to
their parents. But Justice shines in smoky homes, and honors the
righteous life, and, leaving, with averted eyes, foundations gilded
with impurity of hands, she draws nigh to holy things, honoring not
the power of wealth, with its counterfeit stamp of praise. And her
will is done. --AEschylus
From the time they are children to the day of their death, we teach
them and admonish them. As soon as the child understands what is
said to him, his nurse and his mother and his pedagogue and even his
father vie with each other in trying to make the best of him that
can be made, at every word and deed instructing him and warning him,
"This is right," "This is wrong," "This is beautiful," "This is
ugly," "This is righteous," "This is sinful," "Do this," "Don't do
that. " And if the child readily obeys, well and good; if he does
not, then they treat him like a bent and twisted stick,
straightening him out with threats and blows. Later on, they send
him to school, and then they lay their injunctions upon the masters
to pay much more attention to the good behavior of their sons than
to their letters and music (? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ); and the teachers act upon
these injunctions. Later yet, when they have learnt to read, and are
proceeding to understand the meaning of what is written, just as
formerly they understood what was said to them, they put before them
on the benches to read the works of good poets, and insist upon
their learning them by heart--works which contain many admonitions,
and many narratives, noble deeds, and eulogies of the worthy men of
old--their purpose being to awaken the boy's ambition, so that he
may imitate these men and strive to be worthy likewise. The
music-teachers also, pursuing the same line, try to inculcate
self-control (? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ) and to prevent the boys from falling into
mischief. In addition to this, when they have learnt to play on the
lyre, their masters teach them other poems, written by great lyric
poets, making them sing them and play the accompaniments to them,
and compelling them to work into their souls the rhythms and
melodies of them, so that they may grow in gentleness, and, having
their natures timed and tuned, may be fitted to speak and act. The
truth is, the whole life of man needs timing and tuning.
Furthermore, in addition to all this, parents send their sons to the
physical trainer, in order that their bodies may be improved and
rendered capable of seconding a noble intent, and they themselves
not be forced, from physical deterioration, to play the coward in
war or other (serious) matters. And those who can best afford to
give this education, give most of it, and these are the richest
people. Their sons go earliest to school and leave it latest. And
when the boys leave school, the State insists that they shall learn
the laws and live according to them, and not according to their own
caprice . . .
And if any one transgresses these laws, the State
punishes him . . . Seeing that so much attention is devoted to virtue,
both in the family and in the State, do you wonder, Socrates, and
question whether virtue be something that can be taught? Surely you
ought not to wonder at this, but rather to wonder if it could _not_
be taught. --Plato, _Protagoras_ (_words of Protagoras_).
"Isn't it true, Lysis," said I, "that your parents love you very
much? "--"To be sure," said he. --"Then they would wish you to be as
happy as possible? "--"Of course," said he. --"And do you think a
person is happy who is a slave, and is not allowed to do anything he
desires? "--"I don't, indeed," said he. --"Then, if your father and
mother love you and wish you to be happy, they endeavor by every
means in their power to make you happy. "--"To be sure they do," said
he. --"Then they allow you to do anything you please, and never chide
you, or prevent you from doing what you desire. "--"By Jove! they do,
Socrates: they prevent me from doing a great many things. "--"What do
you mean," said I; "they wish you to be happy, and yet prevent you
from doing what you wish? Let us take an example: If you want to
ride in one of your father's chariots, and to hold the reins, when
it is competing in a race, won't they allow you, or will they
prevent you? "--"By Jove! no: they would not allow me," said he. "But
why should they? There is a charioteer, who is hired by my
father. "--"What do you mean? They allow a hired man, rather than
you, to do what he likes with the horses, and pay him a salary
besides? "--"And why not? " said he. --"Well then, I suppose they allow
you to manage the mule-team, and if you wanted to take the whip and
whip it, they would permit you. "--"How could they? " said
he. --"What? " said I: "is nobody allowed to whip it? "--"Of course,"
he said; "the muleteer. "--"A slave or a free man? "--"A slave," said
he. --"And so it seems they think more of a slave than of their son,
and entrust their property to him rather than to you, and allow him
to do what he pleases, whereas they prevent you. But, farther, tell
me this. Do they allow you to manage yourself, or do they not even
trust you to that extent? "--"How trust me? " said he. --"Then does
some one manage you? "--"Yes, my pedagogue here," said he. --"But he
is surely not a slave? "--"Of course he is, our slave," said he. --"Is
it not strange," said I, "that a freeman should be governed by a
slave? But, to continue, what is this pedagogue doing when he
governs you? "--"Taking me to a teacher, or something of the kind,"
he said. --"And these teachers, it cannot be that they too govern
you? "--"To any extent. "--"So then your father likes to set over you
a host of masters and managers; but, of course, when you go home to
your mother, she lets you do what you like, in order to make you
happy, either with the threads or the loom, when she is
weaving--does she not? She surely doesn't in the least prevent you
from handling the batten, or the comb, or any of the instruments
used in spinning. "--And he, laughing, said: "By Jove, Socrates; she
not only prevents me, but I should be beaten if I touched
them. "--"By Hercules," said I, "isn't it true that you have done
some wrong to your father and mother? "--"By Jove, not I," he
said. --"But for what reason, then, do they so anxiously prevent you
from being happy, and doing what you please, and maintain you the
whole day in servitude to some one or another, and without power to
do almost anything you like. It seems, indeed, that you derive no
advantage from all this wealth, but anybody manages it rather than
you, nor from your body, nobly born as it is, but some one else
shepherds it and takes care of it. But you govern nothing, Lysis,
and do nothing that you desire. "--"The reason, Socrates," he said,
"is, that I am not of age. "--Plato, _Lysis_.
The present state of the constitution is as follows: Citizenship is
a right of children whose parents are both of them citizens.
Registration as member of a deme or township takes place when
eighteen years of age are completed. Before it takes place the
townsmen of the deme find a verdict on oath, firstly, whether they
believe the youth to be as old as the law requires, and if the
verdict is in the negative he returns to the ranks of the boys.
Secondly, the jury find whether he is freeborn and legitimate. If
the verdict is against him he appeals to the Heliaea, and the
municipality delegate five of their body to accuse him of
illegitimacy. If he is found by the jurors to have been illegally
proposed for the register, the State sells him for a slave; if the
judgment is given in his favor, he must be registered as one of the
municipality. Those on the register are afterwards examined by the
senate, and if anyone is found not to be eighteen years old, a fine
is imposed on the municipality by which he was registered. After
approbation, they are called _epheboi_, or cadets, and the parents
of all who belong to a single tribe hold a meeting and, after being
sworn, choose three men of the tribe above forty years of age, whom
they believe to be of stainless character and fittest for the
superintendence of youth, and out of these the commons in ecclesia
select one superintendent for all of each tribe, and a governor of
the whole body of youths from the general body of the Athenians.
These take them in charge, and after visiting with them all the
temples, march down to Piraeus, where they garrison the north and
south harbors, Munychia and Acte. The commons also elect two
gymnastic trainers for them, and persons who teach them to fight in
heavy armor, to draw the bow, to throw the javelin, and to handle
artillery. Each of the ten commanders receives as pay a drachma
[about 20 cts. ] per diem, and each of the cadets four obols [about
13 cts. ]. Each commander draws the pay of the cadets of his own
tribe, buys with it the necessaries of life for the whole band (for
they mess together by tribes), and purveys for all their wants. The
first year is spent in military exercises. The second year the
commons meet in the theatre and the cadets, after displaying before
them their mastery in warlike evolutions, are each presented with a
shield and spear, and become mounted patrols of the frontier and
garrison the fortresses. They perform this service for two years,
wearing the equestrian cloak and enjoying immunity from civic
functions. During this period, to guard their military duties from
interruption, they can be parties to no action either as defendant
or plaintiff, except in suits respecting inheritance, or heiresses,
or successions to hereditary priesthoods. When the three years are
completed they fall into the ordinary body of citizens. --Aristotle,
_Constitution of Athens_ (_Poste's Version, with slight
alterations_).
That perfect harmony between power and worth at which the Athenian State
aimed, was something not easily attained or preserved. As far back as
its recorded history reaches, we find a struggle for power going on
between a party which possessed more power than its worth justified, and
a party which possessed less; that is, between a party which, having
once been worthy, strove to hold power in virtue of its past history,
and one that claimed power in virtue of the worth into which it was
growing: in a word, a struggle between declining aristocracy and growing
democracy. To the party in power, of course, this seemed a rebellion
against lawful authority and privilege, and it did its best to suppress
it. Hence came the rigorous legislation of Draco; later the more
conciliatory, less out-spoken, but equally aristocratic legislation of
Solon; then the tyranny of Pisistratus, lasting as long as he could hold
the balance of power between the contending parties; then the
constitution of Clisthenes, with the breaking up of the old Athenian
aristocratic system, the remodelling of the tribes, the degradation of
the Areopagus, and the definite triumph of democracy. To complete the
movement and, as it were, to consecrate it, came the Persian Wars, which
mark the turning-point, the _peripeteia_, in Athenian history and
education. Whatever efforts aristocracy makes to maintain itself after
this, are made in the name of, and under cover of a zeal for, democracy.
The aristocratic Athenian State was based upon land-ownership, slavery,
and the entire freedom of the land-owning class from all but family and
State duties, from all need of engaging in productive industry. So long
as the chief wealth of the State consisted in land and its produce, so
long the population was divided into two classes, the rich and the poor,
and so long the former had little difficulty in keeping all power in
its own hands. But no sooner did the growth of commerce throw wealth
into the hands of a class that owned no land, and was not above engaging
in industry, than this class began to claim a share in political power.
There were now two wealthy classes, standing opposed to each other, a
proud, conservative one, with "old wealth and worth," and a vain,
radical one, with new wealth and wants, both bidding for the favor of
the class that had little wealth, little worth, and many wants, and thus
making it feel its importance. Such is the origin of Athenian democracy.
It is the child of trade and productive industry. It owed its final
consecration to the Persian Wars, and especially to the battle of
Salamis, in which Athens was saved by her fleet, manned chiefly by
marines (? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ) from the lower classes, the upper classes, as we have
seen, being trained only for land-service. Thus the battle of Salamis
was not only a victory of Greece over Persia, but of foreign trade over
home agriculture, of democracy over aristocracy.
The fact that the Athenian democracy owed its origin to trade
determined, in great measure, its history and tendencies. One of its
many results was that it opened Athens to the influx of foreign men,
foreign ideas, and foreign habits, not to speak of foreign gods, all of
which tended to break up the old self-contained, carefully organized
life of the people. In no department were their effects sooner or more
clearly felt than in that of education. From about the date of the
battle of Salamis, when the youthful Ionian, Anaxagoras, came to Athens,
a succession of men of "advanced" ideas in art and science sought a
field of action within her borders. Such a field, indeed, seemed
purposely to have been left open for them by the State, which had
provided no means of intellectual or moral education for its young
citizens, after they passed under its care (see p. 87). Nothing was
easier or more profitable than for these wise foreigners to constitute
themselves public teachers, and fill the place which the State had left
vacant. The State might occasionally object, and seek to punish one or
another of them for corrupting of the youth by the promulgation of
impious or otherwise dangerous ideas, as it did in the case of
Anaxagoras; but their activity was too much in harmony with a tendency
of the time,--a radical and individualistic tendency inseparable from
democracy,--to be dispensed with altogether. Hence it was that, within a
few years after the battle of Salamis, there flourished in Athens a
class of men unknown before within her boundaries, a class of private
professors, or "sophists," as they called themselves, who undertook to
teach theoretically what the State had assumed could be taught only
practically and by herself, viz. , virtue and wisdom. Their ideas were
novel, striking, and radical, hence congenial to a newly emancipated
populace, vain of its recent achievements, and contemptuous of all that
savored of the narrow, pious puritanism of the old time; their premises
were magnificent, and their fees high enough to impose upon a class that
always measures the value of a thing by what it is asked to pay for it;
their method of teaching was such as to flatter the vanity, and secure
the favor, of both pupils and parents. No wonder that their success was
immediate and their influence enormous.
From the days of Socrates to our own, 'sophist' has been a term of
reproach, and not altogether unjustly so. Hegel, Grote, and Zeller have,
indeed, shown that the sophists did not deserve all the obloquy which
has attached itself to their name, inasmuch as they were neither much
better nor much worse than any class of men who set up to teach new
doctrines for money, and, as wise economists, suit supply to demand;
nevertheless, it may be fairly enough said that they largely contributed
to demoralize Athens, by encouraging irreverence for the very
conceptions upon which her polity was built, and by pandering to some of
the most selfish and individualistic tendencies of democracy. If it be
said that they have their place in the history of human evolution, as
the heralds of that higher view of life which allows the individual a
sphere of activities and interests outside of that occupied by the
State, this may at once and without difficulty be admitted, without our
being thereby forced to regard them as noble men. The truth is, they
represented, in practice and in theory, the spirit of individualism,
which was then everywhere asserting itself against the spirit of
nationalism or polity, and which perhaps had to assert itself in an
exaggerated and destructive way, before the rightful claims of the two
could be manifested and harmonized. It is the incorporation of this
spirit of individualism into education that constitutes the "New
Education. "
This spirit, as manifested in the sophists and their teaching, directed
itself against the old political spirit in all the departments of
life--in religion, in politics, in education. It discredited the old
popular gods, upon loyalty to whom the existence of the State had been
supposed to depend, substituting for them some crude fancy like Vortex,
or some bald abstraction like Intellect. It encouraged the individual to
seek his end in his own pleasure, and to regard the State as but a means
to that end. It championed an education in which these ideas occupied a
prominent place. What the sophists actually taught the ambitious young
men who sought their instruction, was self-assertion, unscrupulousness,
and a showy rhetoric, in whose triumphal procession facts, fancies, and
falsehoods marched together in brilliant array. It is but fair to them
to say that, in their endeavor to instruct young men in the art of
specious oratory, they laid the foundations of the art of rhetoric and
the science of grammar. So much, at least, the world owes to them.
Since it was to the young men, who, freed from the discipline of home,
pedagogue, school, and palaestra, could be met with anywhere, in the
street, the agora, the gymnasium, that the sophists directed their chief
attention, it was of course these who first showed the effects of their
teaching. But their influence, falling in, as it did, with the
pronounced radical tendencies of the time, soon made itself felt in all
grades of education, from the family to the university, in the form of
an irreverent, flippant, conceited rationalism, before whose
self-erected and self-corrupted tribunal every institution in heaven and
earth was to be tried. In the schools this influence showed itself in
various ways: (1) in an increased attention to literature, and
especially to the formal side of it, (2) in the tendency to substitute
for the works of the old epic and lyric poets the works of more recent
writers tinged with the new spirit, (3) in the introduction of new and
complicated instruments and kinds of music, (4) in an increasing
departure from the severe physical and moral discipline of the old days.
We now, for the first time, hear of a teacher of literature, distinct
from the music master, of teachers who possessed no copy of Homer
(Alcibiades is said to have chastised such a one), of flutes, citharas,
and the like in use in schools, of wildness and lewdness among boys of
tender age. In the palaestra the new spirit showed itself in a tendency
to substitute showy and unsystematic exercises for the vigorous and
graded exercises of the older time, to sacrifice education to execution.
But, as already remarked, the new spirit showed itself most clearly and
hurtfully in the higher education. The young men, instead of spending
their time in vigorous physical exercise in the gymnasia and open
country, began now to hang about the streets and public places,
listening to sophistic discussions, and to attend the schools of the
sophists, exercising their tongues more than any other part of their
bodies. The effect of this soon showed itself in a decline of physical
power, of endurance, courage, and manliness, and in a strong tendency to
luxury and other physical sins. They now began to imagine for themselves
a private life, very far from coincident with that demanded of a
citizen, and to look upon the old citizen-life, and its ideals,
sanctions, and duties, with contempt or pity, as something which they
had learnt to rise above. The glory and well-being of their country
were no longer their chief object of ambition. The dry rot of
individualism, which always seems to those affected by it an evidence of
health and manly vigor, was corrupting their moral nature, and preparing
the way for the destruction of the State. For it was but too natural
that these young men, when they came to be members of the State, should
neglect its lessons and claims, and, following the new teachings, live
to themselves. Thus, just as the character of the "Old Education" of
Athens showed itself in the behavior of her sons in the Persian Wars, so
that of her "New Education" showed itself fifty years later in the
Peloponnesian War, that long and disastrous struggle which wrecked
Athens and Greece.
Yet Athens and her education were not allowed to go to ruin without a
struggle. The aristocratic party long stuck to the old principles and
tried to give them effect; but, failing to understand the new
circumstances and to take account of them, it erred in the application
of them, by seeking simply to restore the old conditions. Individuals
also exerted their best efforts for the same end. AEschylus, who had
fought at Marathon, and who, more than any other Greek, was endowed with
the spirit of religion, interpreted the old mythology in an ethical
sense, and in this form worked it into a series of dramas, whereby the
history and institutions of the Greek people were shown to be due to a
guiding Providence of inexorable justice, rewarding each man according
to his works, abhorring proud homes "gilded with impurity of hands," and
dwelling with the pure and righteous, though housed in the meanest cot.
AEschylus thus became, not only the father of Greek tragedy, but also the
sublimest moral teacher Greece ever possessed. For moral grandeur there
is but one work in all literature that can stand by the side of
AEschylus' _Oresteia_, and that is the _Divine Comedy_. Yet AEschylus was
driven from Athens on a charge of impiety, and died in exile.
But it was not the tragic drama alone that was inspired and made a
preacher of righteousness: in the hands of Aristophanes, the comic drama
exerted all its power for the same end. For over thirty years this
inimitable humorist used the public theatre to lash the follies, and
hold up to contempt the wretched leaders, of the Athenian populace,
pointing out to his countrymen the abyss of destruction that was yawning
before them. The world has never seen such earnest comedy, not even in
the works of Moliere or Beaumarchais. Yet it was all in vain. Long
before his death, Aristophanes was forbidden to hold up to public scorn
the degradation of his people.
Among the individual citizens who labored with all their might to bring
back Athens to her old worth were two of very different character,
endowments, and position, the one laboring in the world of action, the
other in the world of thought. The first was Pericles, who, seeing that
democracy was the order of the day, accepted it, and, by his personal
character and position, strove to guide it to worthy ends. In order to
encourage gymnastic exercises, particularly among the sons of the newer
families, he built the Lyceum, in a grove sacred to Apollo, between
Cynosarges and the city walls, as a gymnasium for them. With a view to
encouraging among them the study of music, he built an odeon, or
music-hall, under the southeast end of the Acropolis. Both were
magnificent structures. What he did towards the completion of the great
theatre for the encouragement of dancing, we do not know; that this
entered into his plan, there can hardly be any doubt. But Pericles was
too wise a man to suppose that he could induce his pleasure-seeking
countrymen to subject themselves to the old discipline, without offering
them an object calculated to rouse their ambition and call forth their
energy. This object was nothing less than a united Greece, with Athens
as its capital. How hard he tried to make this object familiar to them,
and to render Athens worthy of the place he desired her to occupy, is
pathetically attested to this day by the Propylaea and the Parthenon. On
the frieze of the latter is represented the solemn sacrifice that was to
cement the union of the Hellenic people, and place it at the head of
civilization. When degenerate Greece resisted all his efforts to make
her become one peaceably, he tried to make her do so by force, and the
Peloponnesian War, started on a mere frivolous pretext, was the result.
He did not live long enough to learn the outcome of this desperate
attempt to wake his countrymen to new moral and political life, and it
was well. If he had, he might have been forced to recognize that he had
been attempting an impossible task,--trying to erect a strong structure
with rotten timber, to make a noble State out of ignoble, selfish men.
Unfortunately, the example of his own private life, in which he openly
defied one of the laws of the State, and tried to make concubinage
(? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ) respectable, more than undid all the good he sought to
accomplish. The truth is, Pericles was himself too deeply imbued with
the three vices of his time--rationalism, self-indulgence, and love of
show--to be able to see any true remedy for the evils that sprang from
them. What was needed was not letters, music, gymnastics, dancing, or
dream of empire, but something entirely different--a new moral
inspiration and ideal.
This, the second of the men to whom reference has been made, Socrates,
sought to supply. In the midst of self-indulgence, he lived a life of
poverty and privation; in the midst of splendor and the worship of
outward beauty, he pursued simplicity and took pleasure in his ugliness;
in the midst of self-assertive rationalism and all-knowing sophistry, he
professed ignorance and submission to the gods. The problem of how to
restore the moral life of Athens and Greece presented itself to Socrates
in this form: _The old ethical social sanctions, divine and human,
having, under the influence of rationalism and individualism, lost their
power, where and how shall we find other sanctions to take their place? _
To answer this one question was the aim of Socrates' whole life. He was
not long in seeing that any true answer must rest upon a comprehension
of man's entire nature and relations, and that the sophists were able to
impose upon his countrymen only because no such comprehension was
theirs. He saw that the old moral life, based upon naive tradition and
prescription, sanctioned by gods of the imagination, would have to give
place to a moral life resting upon self-understanding and reflection.
He accordingly adopted as his motto the command of the Delphic oracle,
_Know Thyself_ (? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? o? ), and set to work with all his might to
obey it.
He now, therefore, went to meet the sophists on their own ground and
with their own methods, and he did this so well as to be considered by
many, Aristophanes among them, as the best possible representative of
the class. What is true is, that he was the first Athenian who undertook
to do what the sophists had for some time considered their special
function,--to impart a "higher education" to the youth and men of
Athens. He went about the streets, shops, walks, schools, and gymnasia
of the city, drawing all sorts of persons into conversation, and trying
to elicit truth for himself and them (for he pretended to know nothing).
He was never so pleased as when he met a real sophist, who professed to
have knowledge, and never so much in his element as when, in the
presence of a knot of young men, he could, by his ironical, subtle
questions, force said sophist to admit that he too knew nothing. The
fact was, Socrates, studying Heraclitus, had become convinced that the
reason why men fell into error was because they did not know themselves,
or their own thoughts, because what they called thoughts were mere
opinions, mere fragments of thoughts. He concluded that, if men were
ever to be redeemed from error, intellectual and moral, they must be
made to think whole thoughts. Accordingly, he took the ordinary opinions
of men and, by a series of well-directed questions, tried to bring out
their implications, that is, the wholes of which they were parts. Such
is the Socratic or dialectic (= conversational) method.
